Pro-Russian blogger inspires protest at president office

Several hundred followers of pro-Russian blogger
Anatoliy Shariy gathered at the President’s Office on June 17 to demand rule of
law, fighting corruption an end to what they called a “banana republic” under
the Zelensky presidency. Specifically, they demanded that law enforcement
prosecute alleged attacks on June 11 and 12 by pro-Western activists and Donbas
war veterans against Shariy-aligned journalists and activists. They also
demanded the conviction of Serhiy Sternenko, an Odesa activist currently on trial
in Kyiv for murder. (He alleges he acted in self -defense.) Shariy was not at
the protest because he has had refugee status in Lithuania since 2012, having
proved political persecution by the Yanukovych administration.

The protest was held under the slogan, “Not My
President.” Protesters also chanted slogans of “Vova, come out!” and “Why did
you run for president?” Speakers complained that President Zelensky is pursuing
the same policies as his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, repeating a Kremlin talking
point intended to convince Russophile Ukrainians to abandon their support for
Zelensky. The protestors also vowed to remove from office
Kharkiv Mayor Hennadiy Kernes, who formed a political alliance with Poroshenko
in 2014, succeeded in suppressing pro-Russian separatists, and has since
resisted capitulating to Russian political demands.

At around noon, the Shariyists walked to the Internal
Affairs Ministry to continue their protest there. Along the way, several fights
erupted between its participants and those opposed, among them reported to be
members of the National Corps, a nationalist political party. Opponents threw
several explosive devices. At least 15 people were arrested. A fight also
occurred in the Kyiv metro, in which a Donbas war veteran and opponent to the
protest was reportedly beaten. The protest was granted in-depth coverage by the
ZIK television network, recently acquired by Viktor Medvedchuk, who is widely
believed to be Putin’s righthand man in Ukraine. Shariy often appears on this
news network.

Zenon Zawada: The June 17
protest by the Shariyists marks the ripening of a Kremlin-backed political
technology that had been years in the making. The strategy involved developing
a vibrant protest movement to challenge the pro-Western forces in the streets.
The defunct Party of Regions (and successor Opposition Platform For Life), both
oriented towards Russia, could not mobilize Russophile youth because they have
been reactionary forces – mostly supported by the middle-aged laborers and pensioners
in the Southeast – who sought the same type of post-Soviet stability that Putin
accomplished in Russia and Lukashenko established in Belarus.

On the other hand, Shariy has been able to inspire
Russophile youth by appealing to speaking to them using new media, and
employing narratives of fighting a corrupt establishment. Through his YouTube
blog and website, he actively criticized the Poroshenko administration,
pro-Western media, nationalists and Western actors in Ukraine (including
Soros-sponsored NGOs), using the language of humor, sarcasm and cynicism. In
the last five years, Shariy’s YouTube channel has swelled to 2.3 mln
subscribers and his videos often draw at least half a million views. In this
way, Shariy has been able to create for the Kremlin an activist movement that
employs similar narratives and language as the pro-Western activists (while at
the same time opposing them), based on establishing rule of law and fighting
corruption. His followers also want an end to the warfare in Donbas and Russian
cultural rights.

In essence, Shariy has succeeded in taking hostility
towards Poroshenko and leveraging it into a protest movement to the Kremlin’s
advantage. We believe the Shariyists to be useful pawns for the Kremlin in
destabilizing Ukraine. Though they chant slogans for rule of law and combatting
corruption, they don’t understand that Euro-Atlantic integration offers the
best hope to accomplish these goals, while integrating with Russia will make
these matters even worse. The emergence of such a movement likely would have
been avoided had Poroshenko and his officials had not indulged in corruption
themselves (allegedly) and more seriously pursued Western integration.

A key battleground in the Kremlin’s destabilization
efforts this summer will be the trial involving Serhiy Sternenko, the
nationalist activist who killed an attacker in May 2018, in what he says was an
act of self-defense. Many of the Shariyists at the June 16 protest were
reported by the zik.ua news site to have arrived from Odesa, the native city of
Sternenko, where he led many protests and political actions in recent years,
drawing much resentment from the city’s Russophile majority. In this way,
Sternenko’s court trial has been politicized to become a battle between Ukraine’s
nationalist and Russophile forces.

Shariy’s efforts are also aimed at expanding the
pro-Russian electorate beyond the unappealing Opposition Platform, which is
associated with the corrupt oligarchy. Shariy’s Party is now capable of
securing 4.7% of the vote in parliamentary elections and surpassing the 5.0%
threshold, according to a poll conducted between May 24 and June 4 among 4,000
respondents by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Shariy’s project
also accomplishes the Kremlin aim of pressuring towards capitulation President
Zelensky, who is currently engaged in an grotesque juggling act between
pro-Russian and pro-Western forces that we believe will eventually become
untenable, perhaps as early as this year.